Mediagazer: Online travel magazine Culture Trip raises $80M Series B; founder says the startup has 300 paid contributors and publishes 3,000 articles per month (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

4:00 AM ET, April 25, 2018

Top News:

Justin Baragona / Contemptor:

Infosec expert for Joy Reid says significant evidence exists that her old blog was compromised and some recently circulated posts were not on site at any time — Earlier this week, Mediaite published a bombshell report on the discovery of a large number of homophobic posts that had been discovered …

Discussion: @erikwemple, @ggreenwald, @angryblacklady, @angryblacklady, shoqvalue.com, @bernstein, Web Science …, @liamstack, @phonedude_mln and Mediaite

Chris Butler / Internet Archive Blogs:

Wayback Machine says it declined to take down “fraudulent” blog posts after Joy Reid's lawyers contacted archive; robots.txt later excluded blog from archives — Some recent press stories (1, 2) have discussed archived blog posts of a prominent journalist, Joy Ann Reid …

Discussion: New York Times, Contemptor, Fast Company, @dangillmor, @kfile, The Daily Caller and New York Post

Glenn Greenwald / The Intercept:
Twitter user shared screenshots of homophobic posts on Joy Reid's Reid Report, found via Wayback Machine; Reid claims content was manipulated by external party

Discussion: @pflag, Mediaite, Splinter, The Daily Beast, HuffPost, Mediaite, @bernstein, @jamie_maz, BuzzFeed, Boing Boing, Contemptor, The Daily Caller, Fox News, @ggreenwald, @kfile, @ggreenwald, @caulkthewagon, @ggreenwald, @bernstein, @jamie_maz and Sean Hannity

Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:

Some YouTube thumbnails depicted bestiality, now pulled; YouTube says monitoring tech missed because bestiality thumbnails may lack signals of typical porn — There is bestiality on YouTube, and it's surprisingly easy to find. It's also surprisingly prevalent, but not in videos …

Discussion: Mashable, The Verge, @pkafka, @jimwaterson, @gaywonk, @mattmittenthal, @cwarzel, @cwarzel, @cwarzel and YouTube Blog, more at Techmeme »

Mark Anderson / Sacramento Business Journal:

McClatchy's Sacramento Bee announces plans to lay off or buy out 14 editorial staffers and eight working on production and copy desk, effective in early May — The Sacramento Bee on Tuesday announced another round of layoffs in its newsroom. The latest round of job cuts includes 14 journalists …

Discussion: Comstock's magazine, @sacbiz, @rl_bynum, @mattdpearce, @kylebuis, @callaghanpeter, @andrewsheeler, @fergusonbj, @byrosenberg, @newsfletch, @byrosenberg and @byrosenberg

Lucia Moses / Digiday:
McClatchy partners with Google to roll out its new subscription tool, Subscribe with Google, across all 30 of its local news sites across 14 states

Discussion: @cforman, @laurenhorsch, @dawnbvaughan, @doug_hanks, @mcclatchy and @cforman

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Spotify launches a redesigned mobile app for its free users that lets them listen on-demand to any song on one of 15 personalized discovery playlists — Today at the Gramercy Theater in NYC, Spotify's Chief R&D Officer Gustav Söderström announced a brand new free version of the Spotify mobile app.

Discussion: Slate, Recode, @alexeheath, newsroom.spotify.com, The Verge, RAIN News, Engadget, Fortune, @daigosweden, @alexeheath, VentureBeat, MacRumors, Engadget, TechHive, @lucas_shaw and Fast Company, more at Techmeme »

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:

Sinclair revises plan for Tribune deal, would sell 23 TV stations, keep New York's WPIX, sell but operate Chicago's WGN, end up with 215 stations in 102 markets — Sinclair Broadcast Group has been forced to significantly revise its plan for station divestitures if its $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media is approved.

Discussion: Reuters, Broadcasting & Cable, @jeffjarvis, TVSpy, The Wrap, @jayrosen_nyu, @jayrosen_nyu, sbgi.net and Radio & Television …

Wall Street Journal:

Some ad tech firms worry EU's GDPR will just increase market share for Facebook and Google, but EU's Věra Jourová doubts that will be an effect of the law — Big tech companies gain while smaller online ad firms are squeezed under the European Union's GDPR, which takes effect in May.

Mike Shields / Business Insider:

Sources: Bloomberg is planning to erect a paywall on its site, possibly as soon as next month — - Bloomberg is planning to start charging readers to access stories on Bloomberg.com, potentially starting next month, according to people familiar with the matter.

Discussion: Talking Biz News and @yoda

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Online travel magazine Culture Trip raises $80M Series B; founder says the startup has 300 paid contributors and publishes 3,000 articles per month — While a lot of travel startups (Airbnb, Ctrip, Kayak, to name a few) have made waves by disrupting how people search for and buy accommodation …

Discussion: Financial Times, Business Insider, Business Wire and VentureBeat

New York Times:

Records and interviews show the head of security for EPA chief Scott Pruitt moonlighted for National Enquirer publisher AMI amid the 2016 campaign — WASHINGTON — The former Secret Service agent who leads the security detail for Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency …

Discussion: @kenvogel, @ericliptonnyt and The Daily Caller

Ina Fried / Axios:

Oath, which owns Yahoo and AOL, is changing its terms of service to force users to give up their class action lawsuit rights in the US — Verizon's Oath unit, which includes Yahoo, AOL and other media properties, is making a change that requires users to give up their right to be part of class action lawsuits.

Discussion: @inafried, more at Techmeme »

Kellen / Droid Life:

Source: Google Play Music will be replaced by YouTube's upcoming music streaming service, with Play Music users forced to use the new service by the end of 2018 — When Google finally launches its rumored YouTube Remix platform this year, one of its other services will be put to rest.

Discussion: The Next Web, @matthewkeyslive, @mhbergen and 9to5Google, more at Techmeme »

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This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 4:00 AM ET, April 25, 2018.

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Who's Hiring in Media?

Output Producer, CA — AP

China Markets Correspondent, Shanghai — Reuters

Senior Assignment Editor, DC — WaPo

Breaking News Editor, Tokyo — Bloomberg

Senior Correspondent - Wealth, NY — WSJ

Reporter - Ottawa Bureau — Globe & Mail

Research Director, CA — OCBJ

Immigration Enforcement Reporter — Documented

Presque Island Reporter, ME — Bangor Daily News

Contributing Parks Ed. - SW, CA — SFGATE

AI Content Editor, WA — Outlier

Legislative Reporter, TN — Daily Memphian

Elon Musk Reporter, NY or CA — The Information

Government & Politics Editor, WA — Seattle Times

Business & GA Reporter. VT — VTDigger

Sports Reporter, WA — Everett Herald

Energy Reporter, TX — Houston Chronicle

Senior Reporter, SC — Island Packet

Trade & Climate Correspondent, DC — FT

Reporter, WI — Racine County Eye

Political Newsletter Writer, CO — The Lever

Jackson Reporter, MS — Verite

Music Editor, AZ — Phoenix New Times

Breaking News Reporter, NV — Las Vegas Sun

Fearless Reporter/Producer, IA — BPC

Reporter II - Technology, Remote — NPR

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Monika Bickert / Facebook:
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